Local System Leaders

As a local system leader, you are a bridge across your education system, influencing state leaders and elevating your community’s needs. You lead and learn from innovation, reflecting your deep understanding of learners’ experiences and the outcomes they need for their success. You treat community-based design as a muscle, not a moment—co-creating a shared vision with learners, caregivers, and educators, and aligning time, talent, and funding to realize it.

You pair autonomy with evaluation to show what’s possible when education experiences are designed to center learner agency, relevance, and rigor. Your work powers feedback loops that leverage data and innovation to refine policy, target supports, and scale effective models statewide. Your leadership turns local problem-solving into system-level learning that endures, elevating student experience today and strengthening the state’s R&D ecosystem for tomorrow.

How Local System Leaders Advance Education R&D

Community-Driven Co-Creation

You engage learners, caregivers, and educators as co-designers, centering youth voice so innovations are rooted in community needs and aligned to your local system vision and priorities.

Flexibility Activation

You leverage statutory flexibilities, partner with school leaders to pilot new models of teaching and learning, and generate credible, context-rich insights about what works and under what conditions.

Innovation Inspiration

You align time, talent, and funding to prove what’s possible when autonomy is paired with evaluation, creating the models and case studies that inspire other local leaders.

Practitioner Insight and Policy Influence

Your frontline data and implementation lessons feed systems transformation, shaping state research agendas, refining policies and supports, and accelerating the spread of what works.

An Action Agenda and Landscape Scan for Schools Systems R&D

Local and school system leaders are integral members of the state education R&D ecosystem. On December 1, ALI and Digital Promise’s District Advisory Committee of 13 superintendents launched an action agenda for education R&D at the school system level. In January, the committee will release a comprehensive research report providing how-to guidance for school systems to implement R&D and drive improvement in their communities.

Check back here for new content and to hear from district leaders across the country furthering evidence-based innovation for their students.

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Recommendations and Key Actions

Contribute to shaping your state’s vision, goals, and research agenda. At the same time, co-create a local vision that aligns state priorities with community needs and context.

Translate state aspirations into lived learner experience. Participating in state vision and goal-setting ensures both are informed by local needs, while co-creating a community-rooted vision builds the local infrastructure for design, testing, and evidence-based improvement.

When your state initiates vision and goals development, participate as an authentic partner who can represent your community context and needs.

How:

  • Bring diverse learners’ and caregivers’ voices to the table. Ensure that your community’s demographics are represented. 
  • Share honest insights into the constraints that prevent local innovation.
  • Help state leaders understand your community’s context, assets, and challenges.
  • Advocate for vision language that empowers local innovation.

Examples:

Resource:

Develop your local education system vision, rooted in community needs and aspirations. Co-design the vision with learners, caregivers, educators, and community partners to build shared commitment, broaden support, and sustain the work through leadership changes.

How:

  • Engage your community in co-creating a portrait of a graduate or similar vision statement.
  • Center young people. Have regular, ongoing conversations with learners to connect system design and improvements to their experiences and needs.
  • Identify how your local context aligns with state priorities.
  • Make explicit connections between your school system’s strategic plan and the state research agenda.
  • Document the vision (goals/graduate aims, learner experiences, enabling elements) and make it iterative. 

Examples:

Inform the state’s research priorities by sharing questions that matter to local leaders and practitioners, not just academics, to yield actionable insights that are actually used.

How:

  • Inform state research priorities. When your state solicits input, share specific questions your local system is wrestling with that research could help answer.
  • Form coalitions with other school systems and community-based organizations. Create collective momentum and opportunities for cross-sector learning and solutions.
  • Partner with universities. Together, conduct action research that addresses your local needs and informs state learning.

Examples: 

Drive systemic education R&D forward by advocating for dedicated state capacity and partnering early to shape state infrastructure. At the same time, establish local innovation leadership that bridges state priorities and resources with community-based design and learning.

Shape state R&D infrastructure by advocating for dedicated capacity and partnering early with emerging offices. Locally, build innovation leadership to pilot solutions, elevate insights, and link local priorities and design to the state agenda.

Use your voice as a local leader to make the case that your state needs dedicated R&D capacity, helping state leaders understand why this infrastructure would be valuable to the field and what support would be most helpful so they can hire for the right skills.

How:

  • Describe the gap between research you can access and research you can actually use. Ask for research that quickly translates findings to actionable insights, not just academic papers.
  • Articulate what support would help you innovate (not just flexibility, but capacity). Explain what you need to tackle local challenges and support learners furthest from opportunity (e.g., rapid feedback loops, practical guidance, help with evaluation design, technical assistance support).
  • Emphasize the importance of relationships and responsiveness over pure technical expertise.
  • Make it clear that “research staff” and “accountability staff” are different roles.

If your state establishes an R&D or Innovation office or partnership, position yourself as a thought partner and early adopter to shape how they work and get early access to resources.

How:

  • Reach out proactively. Introduce your school system’s innovation work and challenges.
  • Serve as a learning laboratory. Volunteer to pilot new approaches.
  • Share honest feedback about what’s working and what isn’t.
  • Help the office understand practitioner needs and how to make research actionable.
  • Connect the SEA to other innovative school systems in your state.

Designate a school system innovation leader role whose job includes connecting to state R&D resources and driving strategy for local innovation and evidence-based learning.

How:

  • Look for someone curious, relational, and willing to ask hard questions.
  • Give them permission and support to convene across departments and think systemically.
  • Connect them to state or national networks and professional learning opportunities.
  • Protect time for learning and relationship building, not just for implementation.
  • Position them as a bridge between learners, caregivers, educators, and system leadership.
  • Lean on partners. If it is not possible to devote full-time staff capacity to innovation, consider local community organizations with existing R&D capacity to model, learn, and expand capacity.

Examples:

Establish a school system advisory process and/or community planning team to help drive your innovation priorities, strengthening both local and state-level work.

How:

  • Convene educators, caregivers, learners, and community partners regularly. Seek to understand their needs and aspirations. Administer, analyze, synthesize, and discuss surveys, interviews, and focus groups across key stakeholder groups to shape your innovation strategy.
  • Create an initial case for change. Outline key school and system/district leaders’ ‘why’ for reimagining education, based on the ongoing input of learners and community members.
  • Identify the initial local infrastructure and conditions needed to enable innovation.
  • Connect your local priorities to the state R&D agenda, where aligned.
  • Elevate learnings. Share emergent solutions and local problem-solving processes with the community and the state.

Examples:

Resource: 

Leverage state R&D infrastructure, policy flexibility, programs, and resources to lead locally-driven innovation and apply evidence-based solutions that address your community’s challenges and needs

Map and activate state policy flexibilities and programs to unlock innovative design that centers learners. As you run thoughtful pilots, partner with peers and the state, document impact on access and outcomes, and turn R&D infrastructure into usable evidence that informs local design and state-level learning.

Identify and document state and local flexibility opportunities and programs that enable local innovation.

How:

  • Identify your state’s policy flexibility and innovation opportunities. This includes locally-driven flexibilities that require activation steps (e.g. development of a locally-approved plan to utilize flexibility). 
  • Connect with other innovative leaders in your state. Gain a deeper understanding of the flexibilities they have leveraged.
  • Conduct a comprehensive local policy audit. Work with school leaders to identify constraining rules and regulations.
  • Distinguish between essential oversight and unnecessary control. Make it a goal for central office to support rather than constrain innovation.
  • Document how school leaders are using flexibility for community-based co-design. Share examples of changes in access, engagement, belonging, and agency. Connect this to your state’s research agenda.
  • Share successes publicly to build a case for existing and/or additional flexibility.

Examples: 

Resources:

Participate in statutory innovation programs and pilots.

How:

  • If your state has a statutory innovation or pilot program, identify schools and innovative leaders with the will and capacity to participate individually or collectively.
  • Apply for the program. Build shared understanding of how innovation aligns with community needs and a strong proposal that leverages the opportunity fully:
    • Outline the required flexibilities to support the vision.
    • Incorporate meaningful partnerships within and beyond K-12.
    • Leverage the opportunity to reimagine education.
  • Develop a robust evaluation plan. Identify success metrics and how you’ll measure them. 
  • Share learnings with local and state-level stakeholders. Leverage findings for local improvements.
  • Elevate emerging barriers that can contribute to state-level policy change.


Examples:

Resource:

Advocate for your state to take advantage of federal innovative assessment flexibility.

How:

  • Participate in pilots to develop and test innovative assessment approaches (e.g. adaptive testing, performance assessment, durable skills assessment).
  • Document how conventional assessments limit the ability to implement deeper learning and alignment to a portrait of a graduate or other vision statement.
  • Demonstrate how innovative assessments can maintain validity, rigor, and usefulness.
  • Build relationships with state assessment staff. Understand their concerns and constraints, as well as any capacities and resources they can bring to support your work.
  • Support state applications for federal assessment flexibilities such as the Innovative Assessment Demonstration Authority (IADA).

Resources:

Identify and build the local capacity needed to impact mindset and behavior change.

Shift mindsets and behavior by making R&D the shared language of transformation. Build trust through authentic listening, model transparency about what you’re learning, and align innovations to community values, so educators feel safe to iterate and evidence routinely informs decisions

Normalize R&D  in your local system by consistently using R&D terminology to describe the evidence-based improvement work and innovation already happening in your schools and community.

How:

  • Create a shared definition of innovation and R&D. Leverage statutory definitions for either term, if available, for consistency. 
  • Rebrand existing initiatives. When educators test a new instructional strategy, collect student work, and adjust their approach, call it “our R&D cycle in action.”
  • Make R&D visible in strategic documents. Use R&D language in your system’s strategic plan, school improvement plans, and professional learning frameworks.
  • Celebrate learning from implementation. Whether successful or not, emphasize what was learned and how the work will inform next steps.
  • Partner with educator preparation programs. Work with local universities to develop new educators who enter schools thinking of themselves as practitioner-innovator-researchers.
  • Model transparency. Share system-level decisions that were adjusted based on data or feedback. Show that iteration is valued at every level.

Dedicate up-front time to building trust with community stakeholders and deeply understanding what they value before designing innovation initiatives, creating a foundation for durable change and ownership.

How:

  • Go beyond typical surveys and representation. Use multiple methods to reach a broader population, including community conversations or listening sessions, learner focus groups, and partnerships with trusted community organizations.
  • Look for patterns. What themes emerge consistently across different stakeholder groups?
  • Test your understanding. Share back what you think you heard and ask if you got it right.
  • Design with values in mind. Explicitly show how proposed innovations align with community values you’ve heard.
  • Accept that transformation takes time, and strong conditions for innovation are essential for sustainable change.

Examples:

Resource:

Provide innovation-focused system-wide professional development opportunities. 

How:

  • Create dedicated time and space for collaborative inquiry. This includes educator learning teams, innovation cohorts, or communities of practice.
  • Integrate learners as innovators and co-researchers who partner with educators.
  • Create feedback loops that inform scaling decisions and policy adjustments. Connect educator learning to system improvements by giving educators regular opportunities to share successes, challenges, and emerging practices with system and state leaders.
  • Partner with external providers to build R&D capacity. Consider coaching and change management and improvement science training. Provide accessible tools that help educators collect evidence and iterate on practices.

Contribute to and utilize more modern state longitudinal data systems (SLDS)

Help modernize your state’s SLDS and build district capacity to translate data into action. Champion holistic indicators and cross-sector linkages, invest in staff learning, and push for timely, practitioner-friendly tools that inform improvement for learners.

Use your voice to shape what data are collected and accessed and how data can support innovation and continuous improvement for learners furthest from opportunity.

How:

  • Participate actively in state SLDS governance bodies, advisory boards, and stakeholder engagement processes.
  • Invest in gathering evidence about the quality of learners’ experiences. This could be through a validated survey or focus groups, interviews, and observation protocols.
  • Advocate for data systems that capture holistic indicators of learner success. This includes student experience indicators around access, belonging, and agency, in addition to academic outcomes. 
  • Share specific examples of questions you’re trying to answer about student engagement outcomes that current data systems don’t support.
  • Request accessible, real-time, actionable data. It should be useful for practitioners, not just for state reporting.
  • Push for cross-sector data linkages. See a more robust picture of learners’ full trajectories with early childhood to workforce data. 

Resource: 

Build your school system’s capacity to effectively use SLDS data for R&D and continuous improvement.

How:

  • Designate staff responsible for accessing, analyzing, and translating SLDS data for practitioners.
  • Invest in professional development on data literacy and data-informed decision-making for school leaders and teachers.
  • Request technical assistance from the state on how to access and use SLDS tools and dashboards.
  • Ensure your technology infrastructure and internet connectivity support data access and use.
  • Create feedback loops. Translate insights from data analysis into instructional practice and system strategy.

Leverage tools, artificial intelligence, and technology platforms to support and enable education R&D efforts

Champion practitioner-designed R&D tools and responsible AI. Pilot and give feedback on platforms that deliver real-time, actionable insights to fuel local improvement cycles.

Advocate for practitioner-designed R&D technology tools and participate in pilots. 

How:

  • Lean on stakeholder groups. Ask them to help shape what tools and technology get developed for R&D purposes.
  • Pilot an exploration of how AI and other technology can support R&D. Provide clear parameters for responsible use.
  • Build the will and skill of leaders and educators in your system to effectively use AI.
  • Share with state leaders what would make tools and technology useful in your context. Let them know when tools aren’t meeting practitioner needs.
  • Request dashboards that show actionable real-time data, not just compliance metrics, so your system can run data-driven local improvement cycles.

Build human capacity through partnerships, networks, and community engagement

Grow local capacity by joining networks and convening local coalitions that learn openly, share what works, and connect community design to state priorities, building durable champions beyond leadership transitions.

Participate in statewide innovation networks and create local system or regional innovation communities that foster place-based innovation.

  • Participate in state-supported or national networks. Take advantage of structured learning opportunities and peer support for innovation work.
  • Convene local innovative leaders, educators, and community members.
  • Encourage risk-taking and honest reflection.
  • Connect the local network to state priorities. Maintain local relevance.
  • Share local learnings about what’s working and not working, with state leadership and innovation networks; bring state resources and connections back to the local innovation network.
  • Build sustainability. Leverage these networks and partnerships to build a bench of champions for education R&D that can withstand turnover and leadership transitions.

Provide technical support for R&D activities and evidence-based improvements

Make R&D and innovation accessible by resourcing practical support. Curate adoptable tools, tap intermediary and university partners, fund coaching and evaluation capacity, utilize templates and model RFPs, and budget for planning phases and release time so schools run strong, evidence-driven cycles. 

Partner with external providers and leverage existing support networks.

  • Connect with intermediary organizations. Many states have intermediaries that specialize in supporting local capacity building and bring expertise and lessons learned from initiatives across the country. National organizations also do this work.
  • Partner with university researchers. Build in-system capacity for action research and evaluation.
  • Facilitate match-making. Connect your schools with university researchers or community-based organizations that can provide targeted support for specific challenges.

Examples:

 

Create practical tools and resources that make R&D accessible to your schools.

  • Develop templates. Simple problem-of-practice analysis templates can help school teams identify and frame their improvement or transformation challenges.
  • Provide implementation planning guides and data collection tools that don’t require specialized research expertise.
  • Create model RFPs or procurement guidance for learning enviroments seeking additional technical support.
  • Curate and share adoptable and adaptable resources. Elevate real-world examples of innovative models and strategies.

Allocate dedicated time, funding, and staffing for R&D work.

  • Fund R&D work. Create a line item in your budget for technical support partnerships and capacity building.
  • Fund FTEs. Hire instructional coaches or create positions dedicated to supporting innovation and learner-centered mindset development, data use, program evaluation, and improvement science across the system.
  • Include planning and development phases. Provide schools with an on-ramp before full implementation begins.
  • Provide release time. Allow teachers and principals to engage in professional learning communities focused on collaborative inquiry and continuous improvement.

Examples:

Voices From the Field

“The future of learning will emerge when communities are trusted as co-creators and where policy makes space for new ideas to take root and prove themselves. We must design systems that can learn and legislative flexibility is how we invite communities to share solutions, improve practice, and iterate to their next best place.”
— Johnna Noll Executive Director, Norris School District, Wisconsin
“The one thing that we’re really adamant about in our district is that we don’t ever call it professional learning. We call it research and development. And I think it’s that simple of a change. To start changing the terminology to say, when we’re doing professional development or adopting a new strategy, it’s research and development.”
— Dr. Cory Steiner Superintendent, Fargo Public Schools
“Imagine a system where every student engages in meaningful and real-world learning work that connects their interests, their communities, and the challenges that they’ll face in life. A system where academic mastery remains critical, but it’s also paired with purpose and curiosity and the skills that we know our kids will need to navigate the complex world that they’ve inherited. Foundational skills – literacy, numeracy, content knowledge are absolutely essential. They are the building blocks of opportunity for our kids, but we also know that they’re not sufficient on their own for a successful future. Our students are stepping into a world shaped increasingly by automation. Global interdependence, rapid change and deep social challenges that are likely to be exacerbated as our kids get older. Preparing them for that future means expanding not only what we teach but how we define success and what that looks like.”
— Dr. Jason Glass Superintendent, Laguna Beach Unified School District, California, and former Commissioner of Education, Kentucky
“It starts with the mindset and the culture of the leadership. There needs to be a mindset and culture that values the importance of vision and connecting or incentivizing innovation. There needs to be work on the leadership team to actually advance anything that’s going to be worthwhile or sustainable.”
— Tom Rooney Former Superintendent, Lindsay Unified School District
“There is power in numbers. Even though the conditions are there at other schools, few take advantage, leaving the district on a lonely island. It would be nice to have other schools take the leap and go all in, because changing mindsets is collective work and the more people who are doing that, the easier innovation gets for everyone in the long-run.”
— Tom Klapp Director of Personalized Learning, Northern Cass Public Schools

Ready to Take Action?

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Have questions about implementing these recommendations in your state? Want to connect with other state leaders working on education R&D initiatives? The Alliance for Learning Innovation is here to help.

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